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Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

arstechnica.com

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Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#21

Post by cageface »

thechut wrote: post #6

These patent wars don't help anyone but Apple, and directly hurts consumers. I don't think this is what anyone wants. It actually sickens me to see the law enacted in this way. I really hope this comes back to bit Apple in the ass. It seems there has been a story about Apple doing something shitty everyday for the past few days, and the taste it leaves in my mouth is just getting worse and worse.

Agreed. I've been doing iOS dev for about a year now and I really enjoy the hardware and the APIs but I'm getting very close to the breaking point with their behavior.

I'm not proud of enabling them by contributing to their ecosystem.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#22

Post by moultano »

When you work for a company that does this, you owe it to your integrity to resign.

The government is too incompetent to fix this mess, and market pressure isn't going to do it either. That leaves us, the actual engineers. It's our job to tell the companies we work for that litigating instead of competing isn't acceptable.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#23

Post by iamumassthrower »

moultano wrote: post #22

When you work for a company that does this, you owe it to your integrity to resign. The government is too incompetent to fix this mess, and market pressure isn't going to do it either. That leaves us, the actual engineers. It's our job to tell the companies we work for that litigating instead of competing isn't acceptable.

I don't expect that many apple engineers will take a look at the general, vague, and obvious wording of the patent in question and agree that it is general, vague, and obvious.

Take 2 otherwise identical people and give them a question where one of them has a personal stake in the answer, while the other one doesn't, and you will generally find that these seemingly rational individuals have come to different conclusions.

Such is human nature.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#24

Post by flatline3 »

marshray wrote: post #16
flatline3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I'd like to note that the article provides a very poor summary of the patents. That said, I'd like to throw this devil's argument out there as to why these patent wars help consumers: These patent wars might help consumers by allowing Apple to leverage the money they spend on R&D, giving them the traction necessary to invest further R&D, and pushing Apple's competitors to come up with new and different ideas.…

To the contrary, what it tells me is that Apple has lost confidence in its own ability to win on good ideas and good execution and is now being run by investors looking for quarterly returns and lawyers thinking this is actually a constructive way to "leverage the money they spend on R&D".

Or, they're trying to prevent Windows 95 all over again.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#25

Post by dedward »

josefresco wrote: post #5
cremnob wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it wrong exactly?

It's wrong because Apple isn't simply protecting their IP, they're waging a litigious war against a legitimate competitor in hopes that the courts will give them the edge in the marketplace and not their superior products.

They are using the legal system - an important part of modern business. I can assure you in economies with inefficient or nonexistent legal systems, things get much worse and doing business is next to impossible.

Should apple not do this? This is hardball, we're talking billions... and they know they have a limitied window to take advantage of this before they have to continue. They'll make more than the hundred million they put up to do this in the time it takes to settle things. No fanboy-ism here - but the iPhone DID fundamentally change the close-minded walled-garden ripoff stagnant mobile world to get off it's ass and innovate.

Are the patents absurd? Blame the patent system, not Apple for using it. Be sure their competitors are just waiting for a patent opportunity to come along to smash Apple over the head with. Let the big boys play their game. Apple anted up 95 million dollars that they lose if the case does not go in their favour... this isn't a freebie by a longshot.

So until the legal system levels the playing field and fixes the patent system or otherwise makes this type of action impossible, it's dog eat dog.

And in the end - the courts will decide. Don't like the patent system? talk to your representatives in government. Don't want to do that because it "won't matter"? Then you don't have much standing in my books to argue either way. Think politicians care about money? they care about VOTES, which money really helps buy - but convince them they have your votes and they money doesn't matter, they don't need campaign money if they have their votes locked.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#26

Post by dedward »

ken wrote: post #20

I'm no lawyer. Is this ruling stating that the court believes the patents are valid, or simply that if they are found to be valid that they are being infringed in this case? There's a huge difference between the two, and the article isn't quite clear on what the finding is. The bond makes it sound like it could be the latter, but everybody here seems to be assuming it's the former.

It's a preliminary injunction to prevent damages - the court has been convinced that this will go to court and that the damage done to apple during the time it takes to resolve the case warrants an injunction. They also wanted a bond from apple in case it goes the other way so the opposition doesn't get too screwed over if THEY win.... that's money in their pocket - not sure how common that is... first time I've heard of it.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#27

Post by bane »

mechnik wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #8

This is a preliminary injunction. It doesn't mean Apple wins against Samsung. From TFA: "Apple was ordered to post a bond of $95 million to enact the injunction, which would be used to pay Samsung damages if the decision is later reversed."

Can consumers sue Apple for denying them the opportunity to acquire Galaxy Nexus?

Yes, in the U.S. you can sue for pretty much anything. You'll probably lose, but you can at least give it a go.

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#29

Post by iamumassthrower »

flatline3 wrote: post #12
thechut wrote: post #6

These patent wars don't help anyone but Apple, and directly hurts consumers. I don't think this is what anyone wants. It actually sickens me to see the law enacted in this way. I really hope this comes back to bit Apple in the ass. It seems there has been a story about Apple doing something shitty everyday for the past few days, and the taste it leaves in my mouth is just getting worse and worse.

First, I'd like to note that the article provides a very poor summary of the patents. That said, I'd like to throw this devil's argument out there as to why these patent wars help consumers: These patent wars might help consumers by allowing Apple to leverage the money they spend on R&D, giving them the traction necessary to invest further R&D, and pushing Apple's competitors to come up with new and different ideas.…

So apple should be off the hook for innovation once it's released a product and gained a "market position"?

I'm sorry but I'm always going to have trouble with the idea of a company resting on its laurels, yet bringing continual revenue in year after year after year because a piece of government paper says that no one else is allowed to do anything remotely resembling what that company is doing since they got there first.

Also:

"A means of searching multiple databases and sources for data." Last I checked federated search has had a wikipedia article since 2005. Hardly seems like innovation pioneered by Apple and stolen by evil Google.

Slide to unlock... have you used an airplane bathroom?

c'mon people

Re: Judge grants Apple an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus

#30

Post by aklofas »

Retric wrote: post #9
thechut wrote: post #6

These patent wars don't help anyone but Apple, and directly hurts consumers. I don't think this is what anyone wants. It actually sickens me to see the law enacted in this way. I really hope this comes back to bit Apple in the ass. It seems there has been a story about Apple doing something shitty everyday for the past few days, and the taste it leaves in my mouth is just getting worse and worse.

Arguably, forcing other company's to innovate could be a Good thing. Is a rectangle with rounded edges the one and only perfect tablet shape? I don't know, but if everyone just copy's the iPad it's going to take a even longer to find out. The windows tiles may or may not be an advance, but they are clearly not a row of buttons just like the 1st gen iPhone and 2 out of every 3 smart phones that followed.

You're absolutely right. The next tablet will look like this: http://allthingsd.com/files/2011/12/triangle_tablet.png
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